Criminal checks

Over the past twenty years, background checks have become increasingly powerful. The core of a good background check is information, and information everywhere has become easier to access with the rise of databases. This has been very disruptive to social policy, and governments have responded with new laws. An increasing emphasis on fairness, racial equity, and full economic access means that these rules are continuing to develop over time. Failure to understand them can be an expensive mistake.

Criminal records are created in local courthouses. An old, traditional search would go through the following steps:

• Figure out where the subject has lived, by using their social security number.
• Go to any courthouse where they had lived within the past 7 years, and look for any criminal records. Going to courthouses takes time and money, so limiting the scope of the search to 7 years kept costs down. (In some cases the client could get a 10 year search for an extra fee.)

There were limits to this type of search. It might miss crimes committed out of town. Most importantly, it meant that crimes over 7 years old tended to be forgotten. While the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) generally allows convictions […]